Men’s college basketball, women’s college basketball – there’s no shortage of college ball, every night.
Don’t worry, we’re here to help you figure out what you missed but shouldn’t have. Here are all the best moments from the last night in college basketball.
Freeman leads Creighton to opening W
There was just one ranked men’s team in action on Wednesday, and that was Creighton, the No. 23 team in the nation. They took on South Dakota and handled them easily enough, winning 92-76, and their driving force was a transfer from Iowa – Owen Freeman. The 6-foot-10 junior led all scorers with 19 points in just 19 minutes off of the bench, while also contributing 4 rebounds, a steal and a block in that short time. The rest of the bench combined for 17 points in 60 minutes of play, but they weren’t slouching, either: the non-Freeman parts of Creighton’s bench still contributed 11 boards, 6 assists and 3 steals, while the starting five – and Freeman – put up the needed points.
The Bluejays’ dub was also meaningful beyond being a season-opening victory, as it was the 500th win of coach Greg McDermott’s Division I career. He’s actually at 630 career wins, but he got his start in 1989 at a Division II school, North Dakota, and didn’t become a head coach at that level until 1994 for Wayne State College.
Crooks dominated Southern
Audi Crooks has had a great start to the season, which Southern knows firsthand. The Iowa State center crushed it on Wednesday, scoring 29 points against a defense that couldn’t find an answer for her, while helping out plenty elsewhere, too: she pulled down 14 rebounds, dished out a trio of assists and had an emphatic block, to boot.
Crooks led the Big 12 in points per game as a sophomore last season, at 23.4, and she’s picked up right where she left off: through two games, the Cyclones’ star is at 24.5 per game and is shooting north of 70% as well.
Notre Dame crushes Fairleigh Dickinson
“The No. 15-ranked team in the country is good at basketball” isn’t exactly an eye-opening statement, but Wednesday’s Notre Dame 98-52 win against Fairleigh Dickinson still stood as a reminder that this is the case. The Knights just had no answer for the Fighting Irish’s multifaceted attack, which saw Hannah Hidalgo lead all scorers with 27 points, Vanessa de Jesus add 22 and everyone in the starting lineup score at least 13.
Senior forward Gisela Sanchez scored “just” 14 points, but she had a game-leading 12 rebounds to go with that figure.
Sanchez was in the Big 12 on Kansas State the previous two seasons, where she averaged 16.1 and 15.4 minutes per game, but Notre Dame has big plans for her, as evidenced by unleashing her on the Knights for 36 minutes on Wednesday.
Big first half puts Oklahoma State over East Texas A&M
The finale score of Oklahoma State vs. East Texas A&M doesn’t tell the full story, even if “97-59” seems like it says a lot. Things were actually much worse than that for the Lions at halftime, as the Cowgirls were up 45-24, with East Texas A&M limited to just six points in the second quarter.
Senior guard Haleigh Timmer, a transfer from South Dakota State, powered Oklahoma State’s attack in that first half, scoring 17 of her 22 points on the night – and 17 of her team’s 45 – in those first two quarters, including this wide-open three before the buzzer.
East Texas A&M came alive more in the second half, putting another 35 points up before time expired, but for as much as Oklahoma State’s defense might have relaxed in the back half of the game, the offense did not: even with Timmer slowing down, the Cowgirls still dropped 29 points in the third and another 23 in the fourth.
Anderson logs 1,000 career points in D1-leading game
Your scoring leaders for Wednesday’s games? That would be Mississippi Valley State’s Michael James, who dropped 35 on Mississippi University for Women, and Fairfield’s Meghan Anderson, who also scored 35 points. Anderson, a third-year forward, was not only the night’s leading scorer, but the difference in Fairfield’s 75-63 win over Villanova. She also logged her 1,000th career point during that scoring spree, too:
Anderson didn’t just score, either! She collected 7 rebounds – 6 on the defensive side – and paired that with 2 steals and assists a piece, plus a block. It’s tough to have a much better game than that one.
If everyone’s doing it, why can’t Giannis?
Giannis Antetokounmpo has a question:
And it’s completely fair. It’s become commonplace for NCAA basketball teams to acquire Euroleague professionals because they’re older and more experienced than seniors in high school, but have four years of eligibility. Antetokounmpo played professionally in Greece for two seasons, but never tested the American college waters. So does he still have eligibility? If he did, where would he play?
Well, Antetokounmpo made that clear. He’d suit up for the local Milwaukee Division I team, Marquette, a Big East powerhouse. Seemingly, Antetokounmpo’s not just loyal to the NBA team in Milwaukee, but he’d play for the hometown college.
If it were allowed, Marquette would happily welcome him. The rest of college basketball, understandably, might not be as excited about it.
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